Brandon Beachy: Young Strikeout Artist

I usually like to just pick a random player and start analyzing them using statistics and very basic scouting. It’s what I do best, or so I think, and there always ends up being an interesting discussion about this player throughout the post. It’s always best to use current players, and this is especially true for young pitchers with plenty of potential. Brandon Beachy is one of those guys who fits this category, and he had a very good rookie campaign for the Atlanta Braves. Despite the catastrophic collapse marred by an even greater one in Boston, the Braves have to feel good about their young arms in the rotation.

The reason for the post title is quite simple; Beachy induces strikeouts in bunches the way Chien-Ming Wang used to induce groundball outs before that fateful game against the Astros. This- or last, depending on how cynical you are- season, Beachy struck out 10.74 batters per nine innings. Yes, that is indeed a lot of batters who were baffled by Beachy’s pitches. In fact, Beachy led the league in strikeouts per nine innings among all pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched.

There are quite a few strikeout artists who also struggle with the amount of free passes they hand out to hitters, Brandon Morrow and teammate Tommy Hanson are examples, but Beachy’s 2.92 walks per nine innings total is respectable given the fact that he whiffs nearly 11 guys in that same time span. His .307 BABIP was due to some bad luck, but Beachy really needs to up his groundball rate. Only a hair over a third of his batted balls against are grounders, and this is evident when looking at his high 9.8 HR/FB ratio. This is not due to bad luck, and his high strand rate also does not have as much to do with bad luck as one might think.

So thus, we can say that Brandon Beachy’s “true ERA” is between his 3.68 ERA and 3.19 FIP. The most promising predictive stat for the 2.8 WAR pitcher is his 2.94 SIERA. On a side note, I would like to point out that his “low” WAR is due to the fact that he pitched in 140 innings. Over the span of 200, his WAR would be exactly 4; which, needless to say, is very good indeed.

There is no doubt that Brandon Beachy is one of the best pitchers at getting hitters to chase, and the statistic O-Swing% proves this notion, as the young hurler is tenth in the Majors in this statistical category. Almost all of these chased pitches end up in swings-and-misses, as he also has one of the ten lowest O-Contact% totals in the MLB during the 2011 season.

According to DRS, Beachy is a slightly above average pitcher defensively, as he has saved his team two runs by helping to contain those pesky baserunners. His stuff isn’t really that great, but Beachy makes up for it by hitting the right locations and getting enough break to induce untimely (for hitters) swings. My upcoming analysis on his Heat Maps will show this thought.

Beachy likes to throw his fastball on the outer part of the plate to both righties and lefties, and moves away from righties and in to lefties. His fastball is his best pitch and travels at 92 miles an hour which is slightly above the league average. While his slider doesn’t break that much, it is interesting to note that it is his best pitch at inducing swinging strikes. He rarely uses it against lefties, but loves to nestle it in the bottom right corner against right-handed hitters.

What holds true for most pitchers also pertains to Brandon Beachy; his changeup is really hit or miss. He does induce a fair share of whiffs with it, but he also gets rocked. It has a good amount of movement, and he seldomly uses it against righties. His slider is used for right-handers, and his changeup is an effective strikeout pitch against lefties. Beachy likes to spot it in the bottom corner outside as he does his slider against righties.

Right now, Beachy’s curveball needs some fine-tuning and is treated as such. He sparingly throws it against any type of hitter, but he does throw it slightly more against righties and likes to spot it in the lower half of the zone. However, his curve catches far too much of the plate and oftentimes gets hammered. This is the main reason why most of his outs (besides K’s) are flyouts.

I really like Beachy’s cutter, because it has a ton of vertical movement on it. The problem is that he really needs to spot it in the zone better, because location has been a problem for him with that pitch. He does a very good job of hitting his spots with his slider, and I would like to see him do that with his cutter.

There is no doubt that Brandon Beachy has a promising career ahead of him, but he is a lucky pitcher in some respects. His stuff isn’t overpowering at all, and he gives up too many flyballs. Beachy is able to strikeout a ton of batters, but those K’s could fall. Still, I view him as a solid #3 starter who will be an All-Star caliber pitcher further down the road. For now, there are some holes in his game that he needs to clean-up, but Beachy does look like a guy who can figure it all out.